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“Believe it or not, she’s usually much ruder than that to me,” Nova said. “Your presence alone made her treat me better.”
His stomach cramped. “That’s obnoxious.”
“Yes. It is.”
They were quiet for a minute, and Gunner was grateful. He needed a break. But the quiet made him aware of a new problem. “We should get some groceries in case they really do show up tonight. And I don’t know what you like to cook. I’m assuming that you’ll want me to fill the pantry with something other than frozen pizzas.”
“You keep your frozen pizzas in the pantry?”
He gave her some side eye. “You know what I mean.” Last winter he’d been so skimpy with the heat that he probably could have kept the pizzas in there, but he would do a better job of heating the house if there were kids in it. “What kinds of things do you like to cook?”
She waited so long to answer that he wondered if she’d heard him.
“What do you like to eat?” she asked.
“At this point, I would be pretty excited for anything other than frozen pizza.”
“Oh yeah? You want some hot dogs?”
He laughed. “Sure, if that’s what you want to cook.” She still hadn’t answered his question, but he didn’t push. “Are you up for a trip to the grocery store?”
“Sure.” She didn’t sound sure.
“Not a very exciting honeymoon, sorry.”
“Don’t be crazy. I’m so grateful to you, the last thing I’m going to complain about is the lack of a flight to some tourist trap.”
He shifted in his seat. He wished she’d be a little less grateful. It’s not like he wasn’t getting anything out of this arrangement. “Well, maybe once we’re settled, we could go on a family vacation. Take the kids somewhere not touristy.”
She didn’t say anything, but she was smiling dreamily. He’d take it. He couldn’t imagine how busy her mind must be right now.
The grocery store parking lot was packed. This might take longer than he’d thought.
“What’s going on?” she said. “Are we expecting a blizzard?”
Gunner laughed. “I hope not. I know that this is South Dakota, but I think we have until at least September before the blizzards start.”
Chapter 26
NOVA’S CHEST WAS SOtight that it was difficult to get a full breath. She wasn’t used to this. Her old life had been stress-free. She had purposely built it that way.
Of course, she was willing to endure stress if it meant being able to care for those kids, if it meant honoring her mother—but this stress wasn’t because of the kids.
This stress was because she had lied. She had let Gunner believe that she could cook at least as well as the average woman. And it was too late to come clean now because: he had already married her.
If she confessed, wouldn’t he be furious? The whole point of this deal was that he would give her room and board, and she would cook for Bull and him.
It hadn’t felt like a lie when it had started because she was pretty sure she could figure it out in time. He wasn’t going to be in the kitchen watching her, making sure she was a confident natural. She had planned to learn how to cook one meal at a time. That’s why God made YouTube.
But that’s not the way things were working out.
She didn’t have any time at all.
Right this secondGunner was walking her into the grocery store.
She couldn’t Google a week’s worth of recipes between here and the door.
What was she going to do?
